Thursday, March 8, 2018

On Writing: Why I Write Pt. 2

Now that we have the long and relatively boring origin story
out of the way we can focus on more important things. The ideas that drive me
to write. My “writer’s ethos” for lack of a better term. I’ve been told my
motivation to write is both sentimental and romantic. That it lacks a lot of
mechanical reasoning. I’m perfectly okay with that. I don’t ascribe to the idea
that writing has to have a designed purpose. I’m comfortable with the thought
of writing for writings sake. I’m also 100% behind writing for no other reason
than to see ink flow on paper or to test the viability of lining up words
together just for the pleasure of seeing them sit side-by-side. Writing does
not require an end game, many times an end game would completely ruin what
needs to be written; and I’m okay with that too.

I’m going to attempt to have a theme for the rest of these
posts. This will be difficult for me, because I like to jump around and being
constrained by one set of thoughts and ideas is often problematic when I’m
writing something mostly from “scratch”. That said I’ll do my best to “color
within the lines” as I’ve defined them for each post. The themes will take the
form of whatever “reason” to write I’ve identified as being important. All of
this is a loose set of rules I’m setting for myself and for you the reader. Since
importance is really a poor word for what I’m trying to relate, which shows how
long I have yet to go where writing is concerned; a better writer wouldn’t
require this disclaimer.

For Part 2 I think we should start with a tangible “reason”
to write. This is also likely the most applicable to my job at Karas Pen Co,
since the tangible “reason” to write I’ll be covering will be the writing
instrument itself. I don’t plan to land on many specific writing instruments
since that’s largely subjective, but I will tie this all in to how writing
instruments can prompt the act of writing, or foster it, or draw one to desire
to write more. The focus will be on the implement itself, and I’ll delve into
the emotional/psychological state I sometimes enter with specific pens and
pencils, but only as it applies to the writing instrument itself. So much for
the boring part of this post, let’s hope the rest of this is more enjoyable to
read…and to write.

In the past, I never paid much attention to WHAT I was
writing with. For the majority of my writing life, I just used whatever was
handy or sometimes what felt comfortable (that really only applies to pencils
in my case). When I was in high school and college I made the choice to ONLY
write with pencils. My handwriting was far too sloppy for pen use, plus I often
needed to erase entire lines of text and start over. Needless to say, pencils
were a must. Then I joined the Army, pencils were rarely used. A pen that used
black ink was the only acceptable utensil for writing. I used a Fisher Space
Pen, the standard black slip cap one, for a long time. It served me for my
entire first deployment and most of my second. But even that pen was really
only a tool, it never impacted the writing experience in a direct way. I rarely
used it for anything other than official documents, my letters were written in
pencil.

By the end of my career in the Army I was doing most of my
personal writing on a laptop. Journaling, poetry, and stories were all recorded
in a stripped-down word processor that took up little space and was designed to
hold LOTS of content. I separated from the Army, failed to backup all my files,
and subsequently lost hundreds of documents both professional and personal. After
that fiasco, I went through a period where my writing was entirely blogging and
wasn’t very imaginative or very good. Then five or six years ago, I got into
fountain pens.

My wife convinced me that a fountain pen could help improve
my handwriting. I immediately went online and started looking at pictures of
fountain pens, rather than finding reviews of fountain pens, something
completely out of character for me. Needless to say, I ordered a 1940’s
Sheaffer in that lovely green and black striated material off eBay. I had no
idea the pen needed to be repaired until it showed up to my house, and in the
space of a week I was off on a trip teaching myself fountain pen repair. This
was the beginning of my education in how a writing instrument can dramatically
change every aspect of writing.

There is something almost speechless about picking up a
truly remarkable pen or pencil. Again, I’m not speaking to specific brands or
styles, simply that a person can be a pen or pencil user for years and then one
day they are handed a pen or pencil they’ve never used and it falls into their
hand, the heavens open, and the Hallelujah
chorus starts playing. This concept is one that I first found when I
repaired a rather unremarkable looking Sheaffer Triumph Touchdown. The pen had
been a beater and seen a lot of heavy use. It took all my skills at the time to
repair it and something over 2 hours just trying to seat the rear plunger seal.
But when I was done and the pen was inked up, I set it to paper and started
writing and the experience was utterly amazing. It was unlike any other writing
experience I’d had up to that time. I wrote a page of largely nonsensical
statements and set the pen down. Immediately it was back in my hand, and I
think I filled another five pages of random writing before I forced myself to
stop writing. I’d experienced a pen that MADE me want to keep writing even when
I had nothing else to say.

I’ve since run across this numerous times, with pens ranging
from two dollar ballpoints to fountain pens costing hundreds of dollars. It’s
always a unique almost unsettling experience, especially when the pen is owned
by someone else and you have to give it back. But the experience is one, I
truly feel everyone should have. It encourages writing in a way that other
forms of encouragement simply can’t. It creates a desire to write that is
external but serves to push in a way that isn’t nagging or driven by another
human. It is also an external driver to write that can be fully controlled by
the writer, so you never feel out of control during the process.

The correct writing instrument is also important because so
much that we do today is digital. We discount analog instruments as being old
fashioned or not user friendly. But the reality is - writing, not simply
putting your brain on paper, but the analog process of writing engages the
brain in ways that other forms of communication can’t. There are numerous
studies listing the benefits of analog writing. Psychologists prescribe it as
stress relief and for those that are experiencing anxiety from being in a
constantly connected digital world. And the benefits only BEGIN at those
points. I’ve come to understand one way to get over hurdles that are often
present to new writers is finding that writer the correct pen or pencil. The
right instrument that is comfortable, feels like a part of them, encourages
them to write, isn’t too difficult to use, and speaks to who they are; all of
these are elements that can turn writing from a chore into a daily experience.

For these reasons I highly suggest going out and picking up
as many random pens and pencils as possible. Visit pen stores (yes the exist).
See if there is a pen meet up in your area. Attend a pen show. All of these
situations will bring you in contact with far more writing instruments than you
could ever imagine existed. I would wager a new pen that if given a decent
amount of writing instruments, you’ll find one that creates that “moment” for
you, and I guarantee it will be a life changing experience.

Too many people are rushing around, spending their time texting
frantically, Snapping or Tweeting and they are missing a truly experiential
method of communication that transcends all other methods. Don’t be one of
those people, I beg you. I truly wish that all of you would be able to find
that pen or pencil that can take you from a person with immense amounts of
creative potential to a person that willingly spreads that creative potential
onto thousands of pages of paper. Unlock the writer waiting inside you, we all
have one. It doesn’t have to be a bestseller to be worth a damn; your writer
could help change the life of one random person that reads a message you wrote
and left with the check at a restaurant. You never know just what you can do until
you begin. I say all great beginnings start with a fantastic pen and a blank
piece of paper.